The entertainment media has already begun a review of the murder of 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, four months before the 20th anniversary of her death in Boulder, Colo., in December of 1996.

“There are four separate TV projects about the JonBenét Ramsey case airing this fall, from CBS, Investigation Discovery, Lifetime, and A&E. The first of these to premiere will be A&E's two-hour documentary, The Killing of JonBenét: The Truth Uncovered, on Sept. 5,” Cosmopolitan reports.

Viewers have already seen a trailer of an interview with JonBenet’s three-year-older brother, Burke, who has himself been a suspect in the case.

It entices viewers to view a three-part interview with Dr. Phil. Phil McGraw, who was educated as a psychologist, became a TV personality on the Oprah Winfrey Show and now has a large following.

His show is an odd place for Burke to give his first interview because of Dr. Phil’s in-your-face style.

It seems likely those who believe JonBenet’s death was no mystery, and that she was killed by her mother, won’t find much time devoted to that theory.

E! Online reports that “nothing will be off-limits during the interview, which will explore the public scrutiny of Burke and his parents.”

Again, magazines are unlikely to sell if they suggest the interview is aimed at defending the family members, mother, father or brother.

There was much bad publicity because of how much time was spent by the former beauty queen mother to turn her daughter into a replicant.

Patsy Ramsey died in 2006 of cancer. The detective in the case, who has moved to Australia after being sued by the family, has said her death means the case is solved.

The family published its own book but was unable to block the publication of an account of the case by detective Steve Thomas: JonBenet: Inside the Ramsey Murder Investigation

Those who believe Patsy was responsible tend to believe father John Bennett Ramsey covered up her actions.

In the trailer for the Burke Ramsey interview the sibling says:"I remember my mom searching my room that night saying, 'Where's my baby? Where's my baby?'" Burke Ramsey tells Dr. Phil in a new preview clip from the three-part interview, which will air on Sept. 12, 13, and 14.

"I know people think I did it, that my parents did it," he continues, asked by Dr. Phil about those lingering suspicions. "I know that we were suspects … I want to honor her memory by doing this interview. I don't want anyone to forget.”

Anyone who has pushed the theory that the Rasmseys were involved in the death of their daughter, even close friends, have faced threats from the family’s lawyers, according to ShadowGov.

The media may have given up its role as a major player in presidential campaigns, and that could also mean less coverage of local, city, state and federal government.

The event that most will blame for whatever follows is the decision to give so much free time to Donald Trump. The Republican not only was allowed to talk for hours, usually without questioning, but the news shows that followed spent much of their time discussing what Trump had to say.

Trump clearly believes any news is good news. Only time will tell if that can win a national presidential election. Even if he loses, there is no guarantee the media will be able to return to its major role in choosing our governments.

If Hillary Clinton wins, it will be after what many call a “front porch” campaign. Critics are attacking her for refusing to hold a single traditional news conference. Polls suggest this tactic is working.

Presidential news conferences have been declining in general since after World War 2.

There are fewer journalists assigned strictly to politics as the print media, like news conferences, also is in decline, leaving fewer to press for traditional news conferences.

Much of what voters get to see is panel discussions of political journalists, often joined by “surrogates,” people chosen by candidates to promote their campaigns.

It shouldn’t be assumed that either candidate’s approach will automatically work. The Internet has made it possible for people to inform themselves. Whether they will is another question that has not been answered.

Age often determines where people get their news. Social media is popular with millennials, but newsmakers are reaching out to all age groups. TV remains a major source, but many Americans get their news from a variety of sources.

Political parties will continue to be involved in determining who gets selected to run for elected offices but party loyalties will likely to have to adjust to the evolving mood of electorates influenced by how their performances are judged.

Outsiders like Trump will find it more difficult in future campaigns to get so much free coverage but they will no longer be novelties.

Both Trump and Bernie Sanders, who gave Clinton a surprisingly tough fight, both focused on rallies that sometimes drew thousands but were not coupled with traditional ground games.

This year’s race is not over yet but is edging towards predictability with Clinton leading in the polls and possessing a much stronger traditional get-out-the-vote ground game. Their hopes for down-ticket gains are growing.

MSNBC’s popular Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough, who earlier had given Trump considerable free coverage, wrote:“Friday started as it usually does: an early wake up call, an interview with the next president of the United States and a hateful personal attack from Donald Trump. Such is life during these dog days of August in a nasty presidential campaign not even near its ugly end.

“These days, a rudely out-of-bounds Trump attack surprises Mika and me about as much as a puppy relieving himself on a living room rug. “We’ve figured out by now that it does no good to lose your cool with the puppy or Donald Trump, since neither have and control over their bladder or mouth.

Sometimes it seems a campaign day doesn’t end without discoveries of flaws in top staff hired by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

And not only are the people picked controversial, Trump also seems to be waiting to near the end of the race to fill important jobs.

Trump had fired his field director in April.

TV show journalist Rachel Maddow compared Trump’s decision to not name a new field director until this week to meeting “your spouse for the first time on the curb” outside your wedding.

Maddow also was stunned that Trump picked the only person fired by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for the New Jersey “Bridgegate Scandal.”

Christie, who already works for Trump though he remains governor, was accused getting revenge against a mayor who had refused to support by creating a false construction zone on one of America’s busiest bridges.

“The incident was investigated from a few possible motives. The prevailing theory was that the lane closures were retribution against Fort Lee's Mayor Mark Sokolich(D) for failing to endorse Christie in the 2013 gubernatorial election. That motive was alleged by federal prosecutors in May 2015, in charges against Bridget Anne Kelly, former Deputy Chief of Staff for Christie, and Bill Baroni and David Wildstein, both of whom had been Christie-appointed officials at the Port Authority. Wildstein pleaded guilty. The indictment charged that the three conspired to commit fraud by illegally exploiting Port Authority resources for political ends. Investigators had also examined other possible motives,” Wikipedia said.

Trump this week named Bill Stepien as field director of his get out the vote campaign. The York Times said Stepien was fired for his role in “Bridgegate.” The scandal ended Christie’s presidential campaign, but he latched on with Trump.

Last week Trump’s former campaign director, Paul Manafort, was replaced when he was accused of having ties with the Kremlin.

Clinton campaign director Robby Mook had accused Trump himself of refusing to “disclose deep financial ties that potentially reach into the Kremlin, which could influence his foreign policy decisions. None of this is being disclosed.”

Maddow, who has begun her Trump “personnel scandal of the day” on her MSNBC show, said the hiring of Stepien was “not even remotely the scandal of the day.

Media outlets were reporting scandals involving Stephen Bannon, the former editor of the rightwing “Breitbart” website.

“Barely a week into the job, Donald Trump’s new campaign CEO is already facing harsh scrutiny over a 20-year-old domestic-violence charge and an allegation of voter-registration fraud.

“On Thursday night, the New York Post and other outlets reported that Stephen Bannon was charged with misdemeanor domestic violence, battery, and dissuading a witness in 1996, after an altercation with his then-wife in Santa Monica, California.” the Atlantic reported.

“Early Friday morning, Guardian US added its own bombshell: Bannon and another ex-wife are registered to vote at a vacant house in Florida, a key swing state. That registration could be a violation of election laws, representing voter fraud,” the Atlantic added.

Within hours he had been accused of anti-Semitism.

Newtekworldnews reported in detail about Trump’s ties with Brexit leader Nigel Farage, now one of the most unliked personalties in Britain because he helped lead the campaign to get out of the European Union.

“Farage joined Donald Trump on stage in the USA this week.

“Mr Farage was touted as something of a hero to the American people; the man who enabled we British people to take back our country but “that is bunkum.

“There were candidates from all political parties representing the Brexit and the BRemain camp.

“But the BRexit camp used huge lies, whoppers in fact, to win over voters.

“And there were plenty of people who voted leave for many reasons and needed no political persuasion.

“The UK is currently in a sort of no man's land. “It is still an EU member but with a majority of people voting to leave the EU the proverbial has hit the fan and continues to do so.

“The value of the pound is in freefall. The country waits and waits and the future looks vague at best.

The Guardian reported: “What a thrill to see new life breathed into the buddy demagogue movie in Jackson, Mississippi, on Wednesday night. You only had to look at Nigel Farage’s little face to see how thrilled he was at the chance to play the Danny Glover to Donald Trump’s Mel Gibson.

As for Trump, he was all over Nigel’s cheap suit like a cheap suit.”

For those who want a deeper, inside look at Trump himself and his friends, read “The Making of Trump.” It details his ties and friendships with mobsters and politicians.

And we musn’t forget all the white supremacists who have attached themselves to Trump, who never met a racist he did not like.

Op-ed: Colin Powell was a major force in starting the war in Iraq in 2003 with lies about Saddam Hussein’s possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction. It cost the lives of 4,424 Americans and many more Iraqis. There were no WMDS.

Now Powell is telling the nation he did not urge Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to use private email.

He claims Clinton is trying to “pin” the blame on him for the email trouble she faces.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who preceded Powell, says she “explicitly remembers overhearing Powell advising Clinton that utilizing private email does make the job of Secretary of State easier.” She heard the conversation at a dinner party of secretaries of state.

“Clinton claims she also got an email from Powell recommending use of private email.

“The journalist Joe Conason first reported the conversation between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Powell in his coming book about Bill Clinton’s post-presidency, “Man of the World: The Further Endeavors of Bill Clinton,” which The New York Times received an advanced copy of.

“Mr. Conason describes a conversation in the early months of Mrs. Clinton’s tenure at the State Department at a small dinner party hosted by Madeleine Albright, another former secretary of state, at her home in Washington. Henry Kissinger and Condoleezza Rice also attended.

“Toward the end of the evening, over dessert, Albright asked all of the former secretaries to offer one salient bit of counsel to the nation’s next top diplomat,” Mr. Conason writes. “Powell told her to use her own email, as he had done, except for classified communications, which he had sent and received via a State Department computer.”

Powell has been accused of lying in 2003 when he told the United Nations that Iraq had WMDS.

The Huffington Post explained in detail how Powell lied.

“As much criticism as Powell has gotten for this — he calls it ‘painful’ and says, ‘I get mad when bloggers accuse me of lying’ — it hasn’t been close to what he deserves. That’s because there’s no question that Powell was consciously lying: he fabricated ‘evidence’ and ignored repeated warnings that what he was saying was false.”

Look at Powell’s record.

“Powell got one of his first big boosts in the military by attempting to whitewash the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. He participated in the attempted cover-up of the Iran-Contra scandal.”

A New York Times investigation has found that Donald Trump owes at least twice as much debt as he reported in his public filing required of presidential candidates.

The Times put the amount at $650 million.

It’s long been known that Trump’s wealth claims are an oasis.

In “The Making of Donald Trump” he is quoted as saying: “my net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings, but I try.”

The Times says: “As president Mr. Trump would have substantial sway over monetary and tax pay, as well as the power to make appointments that would directly affect his own financial empired ...Yet The Times’s examination underscored how much of Mr. Trump’s business remains shrouded in mystery. He has declined to disclose his tax returns or allow an independent valuation of his assets.

“Earlier in the campaign, Mr. Trump submitted a 104-page federal financial disclosure form. It said his businesses owed at least $315 million to a relatively small group of lenders and listed ties to more than 500 limited liability companies. Though he answered the questions, the form appears to have been designed for candidates with simpler finances than his, and did not require disclosure of portions of his business activities.”

Don’t expect Trump to reveal his taxes, as every major presidential candidate since the late President Richard Nixon did.There are too many years when he paid none.

Meanwhile, Politico says Republicans see the future as so bleak they are preparing to break the emergency glass alarm. They are working on ways to distance their lower-ballot candidates from Trump as far as possible.

In addition to the Johnston book, voters who want to see the kind of hijinks Trump has pulled they can now see a movie showing how he did it all.

Litigation had blocked it from being shown for years but “Trump What’s The Deal” can now be rented or bought.

Facebook gives a look for those who do not want to rent or buy the movie whose viewing was blocked for a quarter of a century.

Op-ed: Donald Trump’s new, darker image took less than 24 hours to hit the Internet and rightwing TV.How he would have us praying for Hillary Clinton, whose health problems might mean she won’t make it election day.

Trump replaced his top two campaign managers who can only be described as pit bulls after manager Paul Manaford was seen as too close to Russsian President Vladimir Putin.​One, Stephen Bannon, was running one of the most anti-human rights sites in the nation, Brietbart.

It predicted she would be dead soon.​

His first attack was Clinton’s health, whose public health records have been released to anyone who wants to see them, citing a celebrity doctor, Pinsky.Pinsky said he was "gravely concerned" about Clinton's health, noting her doctor's 2015 assessment that showed a "1950 level sort of care" by the evaluation of himself and a colleague.Pinsky said Clinton was being treated for her hypothyroidism with "Armour Thyroid, which is very unconventional and something that we used to use in the 1960s.""Then she falls and hits her head and as a complication of that has a transverse sinus thrombosis," Pinsky said, in reference to Clinton's 2012 medical episode."This is an exceedingly rare clot. I have only seen one in my career. It just seems like she's getting care from somebody that she met in Arkansas when she was a kid and I just -- you gotta wonder. You got to wonder. It's not so much that her health is a grave concern, it's that the care she's getting could make it a concern."

As has so often occurred this was too much even for Republican leaders.Newt Gingrich said: "Well, I think first of all, just to get down to the human level for a second, all of us ought to include Hillary Clinton in our prayers. You can be opposed to somebody without hoping they have bad health and I hope that she's all right," Gingrich responded."Second, I’m always dubious, with all due respect to television doctors, when you have a doctor who has never seen the patient, begin to give you a complicated, fancy sounding analysis based on what? I mean, I would be very cautious and I would recommend to doctors for professional reasons to be very cautious deciding you’re going to start analyzing people. Because next you're gonna get a left-wing psychiatrist explaining Donald Trump in negative terms." … "I think we ought to recognize that's kind of junk medicine," Gingrich said. "That’s not the real deal."

Politico reported: Clinton's internist, based in Mount Kisco, New York, released astatementon the candidate's health in July 2015.Clinton Health Statement- https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2188570/letter.pdfhttp://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/clinton-health-concerns-pushback-227159http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/08/sudden-death-dr-drew-warns-of-coming-pulmonary-embolism-with-hillary-clintons-shoddy-health/http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-gunter/im-a-doctor-heres-concerning-trumps-medical-letter_b_11565838.html

From left, the Stewart &Company store in 1929, soon to become Bonwit Teller; the front door, also 1929; and the trademark limestone reliefs coming down in 1980. Credit Left and center, Avery Architectural Library; right, Nathan Kernan

For Americans who want to know what Donald Trump would do as president look at what he did in his home New York City.He destroyed a beloved building, used illegal foreign workers, didn’t pay some of them and destroyed art deco works he had promised to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“After New York gave up to 90% in Tax Abatement to Trump; Donald Trump purposely smashes $200,000 in Art Sculptures he promised to the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” reports Frederica Cade’s Blog.

“The three piece semi-nude Goddess 15-foot bas-relief sculptures was a part of the Bonwit Teller building of 1929,” Cade said.What he has put forward as a fairy tale image turns out to be more like King Kong.

“Thirty-five years ago, a small army of illegal immigrants (the Polish Brigade) was used to clear the site for what became the crown jewel of Donald Trump’s empire, the Daily Beast says.

They slept on the site.

“They were undocumented and worked ‘off the books,’” Manhattan federal Judge Charles Stewart said of the workers after they became the subject of a 1983 lawsuit. “No records were kept, no Social Security or other taxes were withheld.”

Many wore no helmets or other safety equipment, but no safety reports were fiiled. They were often not paid.When their checks kept bouncing they sued.

It was the beginning of a process. The workers won a $325,000 settlement but ultimately it was replaced with a sealed settlement 19 years after the demolition began, according to “The Making of Donald Trump,” by David Cay Johnston.Trump paid nothing for the art deco pieces the workers had smashed to pieces.

The author said donating the goods for a tax deduction was a waste of time because Trump was paying no taxes during the construction years.

The New York Times said, “With 12 stories of severe, almost unornamented limestone climbing to a ziggurat of setbacks, the Stewart store was the antithesis of the conventional 1928 Bergdorf Goodman one block north.

Plain as the building might be, the entrance was like a spilled casket of gems: platinum, bronze, hammered aluminum, orange and yellow faience, and tinted glass backlighted at night. In 1929 American Architect magazine called it “a sparkling jewel in keeping with the character of the store.”“At the very top of the facade were limestone relief panels of two nearly naked women brandishing large scarves, as if dancing. The architects were Whitney Warren and Charles Wetmore, super-traditional Beaux-Arts designers of mansions and clubs — a puzzling choice for a such an outré building. In time the reliefs would become a Bonwit Teller signature.”

Robert Weller

2016 US election news and other news from the USA

Bio

Worked in journalism, including on the Internet, for more than 40 years. Started as a news editor at the Colorado Daily at the University of Colorado, joined a small Montana newspaper, the Helena Independent-Record, and then United Press International.

AP hired me away in 1973 after a couple of years with UPI and I worked with them until 2008. Assignments have included being the leading AP reporter on the Columbine Massacre, bureau chief in Alaska during the construction of the trans-Alaska pipeline, and covering coups, wars and other events overseas for 14 years.

I was top editor on the AP news desk in New York during the last years of the Vietnam War before going to Alaska. From Anchorage I went to Johannesburg to cover apartheid. I spent 14 years in Africa, throughout the continent, and covered the assassination and cremation of Indira Gandhi.

Once back in Colorado I covered the Army and Air Force, Columbine, skiing, arts and the environment. Worked on both sides of the Continental Divide, Denver and Grand Junction.

My main interests are history and arts, especially classical music, theater and opera.

Graduated from William Jewell College with a B.A. in history.

In addition to my travels as a writer I was a military brat and moved around with my father and mother.

My wife and I have twins, who keep us up-to-date on new trends.

I follow events around the world and have a huge collection of bookmarks that include many overseas sites.

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